After intimating for months, the Albanese Government confirmed over the weekend that it would use the upcoming Jobs & Skills Summit as cover to launch Australia’s biggest ever immigration program:
The government wants to increase the migration intake to between 180,000 and 200,000 a year, which would bring in more skilled migrants including tradies, IT specialists and aged care workers…
This would bring the skilled intake – usually about 70 per cent of the total cap – to between 126,000 and 140,000.
The government is expected to set a new migration cap in the October budget…
A significant part of addressing the labour shortages will be a plan to better recognise prior skills and qualifications from other countries so that migrants aren’t needlessly having to train and study for years in Australia.
This would build on the work done in the interim free-trade deal with India whereby architects, engineers and accountants will be recognised in each other’s countries…
In an interview with The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age, O’Connor said “we do have to be more sophisticated in measuring people’s competencies” from overseas.
Australia’s permanent non-humanitarian migrant intake has never exceeded 190,000, as illustrated in the next chart:
Australia’s permanent non-humanitarian migrant intake has never exceeded 190,000.
Therefore, Labor’s plan to raise the permanent migrant intake to 200,000, as demanded by business groups, would usher the biggest immigration intake this nation has ever seen.
How will a return to extreme immigration help Australia achieve its emissions reduction targets, help with the housing crisis or bring flat-lining wage growth back to parity with inflation? It will have the opposite effects. Yet, our corrupt politicians want us to magically believe that migrants don’t compete for housing, jobs or consume energy and resources.
Clearly, the Labor Party has folded like a cheap deck of cards in response to relentless pressure from Big Business, Big Property and the Edu-migration industry.
What makes Labor’s ‘Big Australia’ immigration policy especially galling is that absolutely none of it was canvassed during the election campaign. Why? Because Labor knew damn well that it wouldn’t have been a vote winner, because the overwhelming majority of Australians oppose a return to pre-COVID mass immigration.
Indeed, during the election campaign, Fairfax questioned why both sides had been conspicuously silent about Australia’s immigration intake.
Former senior Immigration Department official, Abul Rizvi, answered that if either side promised to ramp-up immigration, they would face electoral annihilation:
“If the prime minister were to come out and say, ‘I’m going to increase my migration program to 190,000 per annum as assumed in my budget papers’, he’s gone, 100 per cent. He’ll never say it – and neither will the opposition.”
The part about recognising architects, engineers and accountants trained in India is also curious, given the flow of professionals will be one way from India to Australia. This is concerning as the Indian tertiary education system is far inferior to Australia’s, meaning professional standards would be degraded.
This is a slap in the face for Australia’s young people seeking careers in professional industries who will be shut out by Indians prepared to work for much lower salaries. Older Australian professionals will also find themselves increasingly unemployable over 50.
Ultimately, Labor’s ‘Big Australia’ immigration policy is all about providing cheap labour and demand for Big Business and Big Property, and students for the Edu-migration lobby.
It will further suppress wage growth and exacerbate infrastructure and housing strains across Australia.
It is another treasonous betrayal of Australian workers, only this time by a wolf in sheep’s clothing fake “Labor” Party that is just as neoliberal as its predecessors.
With friends like the Albanese Government, workers sure don’t need enemies.
